Marisa Sterling, P.Eng., FEC

Marisa Sterling is a distinguished engineer and academic administrator. She has over 20 years of experience working and volunteering in the engineering field, in both the private and public sectors. Most recently she served as the elected vice president of PEO and is currently the assistant dean and director of diversity, inclusion and professionalism at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. Sterling previously worked in the consumer products industry in R&D and brand management, and for PEO as manager of enforcement and lead of the repeal of the industrial exception. Her extensive strategic and operational stewardship has positively impacted students and engineers. Through the Ontario Professional Engineers Foundation for Education, a charity where she served as president for 8 years, she has helped develop student knowledge and skills. Sterling has also advanced EIT leadership development by helping create PEO’s G. Gordon M. Sterling Engineering Intern Award, named after her late father, who was also a PEO president. With the advancements of technology, she has been championing the Engineering Change Lab to find ways to transform the engineering community to better serve the people of Ontario. A chemical engineer from the University of Toronto and a member of the Oxford Business Alumni Network, Sterling received the University of Toronto’s Arbor Award in 2015, the Engineers Canada Meritorious Service Award for Community Service in 2016, named a Woman of Distinction by the Canadian National Exhibition Association in 2016, made a fellow of Engineers Canada in 2017 and received the Canada 150 Heritage Pin in 2018. In her spare time, she enjoys being a Warden of Camp 1 and annually obligating students and graduates who have the academic qualifications for the P.Eng. licence.